links for 2007-08-30

I am not a big fan of liquid layouts. I prefer fixed-width, because the number of words on a line can affect readability. But some great points about blog width that can apply in general to all web sites.

I’ve been noticing an ever-rising tide of application invites, pokes, prods, requests to answer questions, etc. on Facebook. Is this networking site reaching a critical mass of uselessness? In the mean time, LinkedIn just hums along quietly…

What went wrong? Web 2.0 is a fiction invented by VCs and journalists who need to simplify things. That’s what went wrong. You can’t version evolution. There’s no “Chimp 2.0” or “amoeba 5.0”. There’s gradual change.

I was getting all ready to rip Robert Scoble’s recent Mahalo report to pieces, but Rand Fishkin does it so well I don’t need to. Mahalo is a new, human-powered search engine. Scoble rants alternately about SEO and how Mahalo will crush Google. Rand points

Ian Lurie is CEO and founder of Portent and the EVP of Marketing Services at Clearlink. He's been a digital marketer since the days of AOL and Compuserve (25 years, if you're counting). He's recorded training for Lynda.com, writes regularly for the Portent Blog and has been published on AllThingsD, Smashing Magazine, and TechCrunch. Ian speaks at conferences around the world, including SearchLove, MozCon, Seattle Interactive Conference and ad:Tech. He has published several books about business and marketing: One Trick Ponies Get Shot, available on Kindle, The Web Marketing All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies, and Conversation Marketing. Follow him on Twitter at portentint, and on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com/in/ianlurie.